Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Yale Bans Iconic Fraternity for Fratboy Stunt 'Offensive' to Women

Yale College Dean Mary Miller announced that the Delta Kappa Epsilon chapter would be banned from recruiting or undertaking any activities on campus for five years as punishment for frats boys acting like . . . well, frat boys.

DKE was banned because of a pledge ritual that involved what is being described as "pro-rape" chants; actually, the ritual involved shouting, “No means yes, yes means anal," and," “My name is Jack, I’m a necrophiliac, I f--- dead women." Footage of the chants was posted online, sparking outcry beyond the New Haven campus.
Outcry or no, no one in her right mind believed that this silly stunt -- intended to embarrass a pledge by having him chant something clearly outlandish and wholly politically incorrect -- in any way, shape, or form advocated, promoted, or fomented rape.

But why inject common sense into the discussion when the subject is rape?

It scarcely seems a coincidence that the ban comes when Yale is currently being investigated by the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Education Department about violations of Title IX. A group of 16 former and current students is accusing the university of failing to address allegations of sexual assault and harassment. Well, today Yale showed the world how it addresses allegations of sexual assault and harassment: by kowtowing to women's groups and kicking tuition paying male students under the bus.

My guess is that the typical Yale woman's reaction to the crude and vulgar antics in question was the equivalent of a mildly perturbed roll of the eyes. But then again, unlike the 16 students and alumni who filed the complaint with the feds, the typical Yale woman does not have skin resembling the model of the translucent woman in the school's biology lab.

Delta Kappa Epsilon was founded in 1844 at the university. It counts among its alumni five former presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Gerald Ford and George W. Bush. DKE had already apologized to the Yale Women's Center. But that wasn't enough for Yale.

The executive director of Delta Kappa Epsilon International, Douglas Lanpher, told the Yale Daily News that the sanctions were "excessive"and that the organization would appeal.

What to make of this effort to hang frat boys by the balls for a mindless fratboy stunt that didn't hurt anyone? It's just another in an endless, mind-numbing cavalcade of puerile, ritualistic gender passion plays at a vaunted American university, staged by the chronically offended purveyors of misandry who insist on dominating the public discourse on all things gender. These gender warriors stand ever vigilant to blow any display of male sexual misbehavior, the more trifling the better, into evidence of "rape culture" they can cite to vilify an entire gender.

So what else is new?

Put it this way: for the past four decades, women's activists have insisted that women are not helpless pawns or victims but doers -- forces who can do anything, including kick male butt, at least as well as the guys.

So, what message does Yale and its chronically offended gender feminists send to the world today? That a little mindless frat boy activity -- and take a deep breath, that's all it was -- is enough to cause not just eye rolling but conniptions; to warrant not just a rebuke, but the aid of the cavalry.

It's another self-inflicted setback for women because they are telling the world in big, bold letters that women need special protections to shield them from the slightest, most trivial, most inconsequential offense. That message does all women a grave disservice -- because women can't be empowered by insisting they are powerless.

Worse, the excessive punishment to the young men does not fit the crime. But we know the people who run Yale don't give a damn about the young men.